Filming with Jimmy Doherty and Jamie Oliver

2016 came in with a bang with our Channel 4 debut on New Year’s Day at 8 pm no less.

We were thrilled to be featured in the third series of Jamie and Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast. It was a fantastic opportunity to showcase Kid meat on national TV in front of a mere 1.38 Million viewers – no pressure! Jamie and I hosted Jamie Oliver and Jimmy Doherty (far too many ‘James!!’) at the farm on a warm September’s day in 2015 and gave them an insight into rearing free-range Kid Meat and more importantly the origin of our Billies. They both embraced our ethos and set about getting our meat on to the radar of both the public and trade. With help from John, Head Chef from the amazing St John’s Restaurant in London and John Relihan who is a master of cooking whole animals over fire, Jamie Oliver cooked up a feast for invited guests and caused quite a stir in our local, the Red Lion’s beer garden!

The filming didn’t end there, the second part of the feature involved a trip to Southend on Sea to film in the famous Pier Café, where guests were cooked up another fantastic Kid meat treat – using our Award Winning Cutlets no less!

‘I can honestly say Orlando Bloom ate & enjoyed our Kid Meat’

It was truly humbling to watch all these strangers eat and crucially enjoy our meat and equally important everyone agreed it was criminal that the Billy Kid was currently just being wasted. To add to all this no other than the Hollywood Super Star Orlando Bloom was the guest star!! So I can honestly say Orlando Bloom ate and enjoyed our Kid Meat!!

The immediate – and I mean immediate (within minutes of the show starting on the TV!!) my phone and email didn’t stop for weeks! We are a business so of course, it was fantastic to be so busy with orders but what kept me going on the long days that Winter always brings were countless emails of support, I can honestly say we did not receive any negative comments. Most people felt very positive about following the process through; enjoying the dairy products and also enjoying the meat from the Billies, which are the by-product. Jamie and I felt this highlighted not only the successful way the programme conveyed why we were rearing the billy kids for meat but also our rearing methods – without compromise, fully transparent and free range.

The Cherry on the top was this review of the farm published on Jamie Oliver’s Website if you would like an idea of what we are doing and why don’t take our word for it please read this.